Picture this if you will – The Armstrongs team has just issued you with your Heavy Rigid Certificate of Competency and you’re on your way to VicRoads to have it exchanged for your brand new Heavy Vehicle Licence. Basking in the glory of having passed your driving assessment with flying colours and giving yourself the odd pat on the back, it suddenly dawns on you – ‘what am I actually going to do with this licence?’

A lot of newly minted heavy vehicle drivers stumble across the bus industry when trying to answer this question. They do some research and they quickly form the opinion that being a suburban bus driver “looks like a pretty good job!” We agree. The bus Industry is a great industry to get into if you’re new to the Transport Industry.

From the amount of inquiry we get from people wanting to get their “bus licence” (see previous blog Now That You Have Your Heavy Vehicle Licence, You’re Ready to be a Bus Driver Right? Think Again!), quite clearly the bus industry is see as an employer of choice. Nice uniforms, nice working environment, regular hours, etcetera, etcetera.

SPOILER ALERT – Somewhere during the application process you MUST pass the driver evaluation.

So what’s this ‘driver evaluation?’ The words are self-explanatory. It’s another way of saying ‘driver assessment’ or ‘drive test.’ But because you know why a truck and bus are so different (because you read our previous blog right?  If not, here’s another chance!) you can appreciate that bus companies want to see whether you can drive a bus – no revelation there!

The driver evaluation will be conducted by one of the bus company’s internal trainers who knows everything there is about driving a route bus. And he or she is not going to cut you “one iota” of slack when the back wheel touches the curb – that’s because you have to remember that a bus driver’s cargo is PEOPLE not pet food! And Customer Comfort and safety is the be all and end all.

Unfortunately, if you haven’t done any additional training at Armstrongs in our route bus, then it’s not looking good. If you have, then you can rest a bit easy as you know Armstrongs has taken you through all the things that bus trainers will be looking for on your driver evaluation and you know what’s going to get you failed and what you need to focus on – so good on you for taking the initiative.

So, now that your aware that there are so many skills that are specific to being a bus driver which are not covered in a standard heavy vehicle licensing course and these skills are crucial if you want that plumb bus driving job, you’re now probably thinking “cut to the chase – what do I need to know to pass the driver evaluation!?!”

Well…we’re not going to just lay it all out for our competitors to see. But what we can say is that ‘we know what we know’ about the driver evaluation process because we took the time to contact every bus company in the state and asked them “what else can Armstrongs can do to better prepare new applicants?” And guess what? Some of them got back to us, in fact some very big bus companies got back to us (you know who you are and we thank you).  So, we took that information and directly added it to our bus training plan.

BOTTOM LINE:

• If you want to be a bus driver and you want to give yourself the very best opportunity to pass your driver evaluation then come to Armstrongs and do some bus training because YOU WILL KNOW EXACTLY WHAT IS REQUIRED TO PASS. How could you better prepare yourself?
• BUT if you want to just drive around aimlessly not knowing if anything you are doing is related to the driver evaluation, then feel free to give one of our competitors a call.  They’ll be happy to take your money. They’ll probably even tell you that they know what you need to do and can simulate a bus stop. If that’s the case, just for interest sake, ask them how far from the curb you should be when performing a bus stop entry – to the exact CENTIMETRE. I wonder if they know….WE DO!

So let’s start working on your dream bus driving job today. Check out your options and get more information from our bus training page or give the team a call.